Paladin vs Warrior tank decision help.

[Apatheist]

Paladin+Priest is the wiser Tank+Healer combo over Warrior+Paladin for most multi-boxers running caster teams that are focused on running Dungeons. IMO.

Fair enough. At the end of the day, classic dungeons are easy and just about any 5 characters are capable of completing them so I guess it's largely a matter of preference and what else you want to do with those characters outside of leveling and farming preraid gear.

Which, when you think about it, is probably where the real choices should happen. Leveling and preraid farming are a relatively small portion of your overall time investment in a character.

[Mercbeast]

I think that people are kind of arguing two points here.

Warriors are the better tanks at this point of WoW. However, the issue is, how much "tank" do you actually need for leveling purposes? In which case the ease of use and simplicity and effectiveness of the Paladin comes into play. Paladin is good enough for all 5 man classic content, and in a lot of ways superior due to not needing that superior raw "tank" for the content we're talking about. They have better aoe threat generation for one.

We can present a few debateable edge case scenarios about what a warrior can and a paladin can't do, but the greatest portion of your time leveling up, the paladin being fire and forget threat magnet, is going to make the process less of a headache for most people. If your goal is to have an actual end game tank at 60 you're going to raid with, then level a warrior. If you just want the easiest path to 60, I'd suggest using a paladin to tank.

[Madsage]

I have been testing warrior and a paladin today and concluded that if you want to run high level dungeons to gear up your team a warrior is preferable because of superior mitigation, improved demo shout reduces mob damage by 30% and defensive stance by an additional 10%.

Paladins can block more attacks but against mobs that hit for 400 or more damage they risk dying if they pull too many mobs, and even though warriors take a lot longer to establish threat by spamming demo shout or cleaving/sundering your healer will use roughly the same amount of mana per fight because of 30% damage taken difference on hard hitting mobs.

So I agree with Apatheist, Paladins are superior in lower level dungeons, but at 55 plus dungeons warrior overtake them

[Purpleflavor]

Fair enough. At the end of the day, classic dungeons are easy and just about any 5 characters are capable of completing them so I guess it's largely a matter of preference and what else you want to do with those characters outside of leveling and farming preraid gear.

Which, when you think about it, is probably where the real choices should happen. Leveling and preraid farming are a relatively small portion of your overall time investment in a character.

this is how i feel about it. I dont think levels 20-50 should be considered for your tanking choice unless you're quitting the game when you hit 60. After getting pre-raid bis on a pally or a warrior, what is there to do from there? If you're just going too farm 5mans than a pally is the best choice. Anything beyond that pve-wise there isnt an option, it's warrior by a landslide. But then you have to consider how many raid bosses will you be tanking, and I dunno about everyone else, but i'll likely be switching my tank to dps along with the rest of my team for raids. When ZG comes out in phase 2 than everything changes. We may be able to box a lot of that raid, along with AQ 20. Which settles it for me. Pally for farming 5mans, and warrior for everything tougher.

[nodoze]

I think everyone is pretty much on the same page. My focus is usually helping new boxers or boxers new to WoW which is why I generally recommend the Paladin+Priest+2Warlock+Mage team (or 2Mage+Warlock) composition as I think it is the most forgivable with the best overall utility and combination of built in tools and survivable toons (even an off Tank)... That is obviously sans other goals that take precedence (like wanting to main a Rogue, Warrior, etc)...

Many of us are running a theoretically superior team to the above team with higher DPS potential (like 4Warriors+Healer) but are finding it a lot harder than the above ranged team. Personally I am finding my all melee team pretty challenging to level which can be frustrating seeing others go faster but I kinda like it regardless. The point is I wouldn't necessarily recommend it (especially to new players or new multiboxers).

In the end it as Apathist said it ultimately does come down to "what else you want to do with those characters" at cap and since I wanted at least 2 Paladins & 1-2 Warriors at cap I pretty much need to do something like the team I am doing (unless I want to level 2 teams)...

Thanks everyone for the great discussion and especially thanks to Apatheist for all the solid input and for giving me the idea for the team I am running (even though it is painful at times ).